@Heathers,

I used dried chives.  With the Lipase that I added, it tastes and smells properly.  Yummo!  Aging in the brine now.  Week or so and it will be ready to share.

Carl - 07 April 2008 04:09 PM

Hi

I had this problem (runny camembert). 

My problem was not over ripening.  The cheese would be runny near the rind even before the ripening
process reached the center of the cheese. 

I solved it (I think) by adding 1/2 hour of acidification before renneting (as suggested by Nabil), and upping
the temperature to 90F (84F was my original temp, from recipe in The Cheesemakers Manual by Morris). 
This results in more liquid being expelled from the cheese.

The resulting cheese had a consistency more like commercial camembert, even after 6 weeks in the cave.

So I encourage you to experiment with raising the renneting temp a little or lowering the pH as little (by increasing
acidification time).

-Carl

ur case was not runny cheese (in term of over ripping, i agree) , it was over moisture cheese (lot more whey than it should)... very good analyzing Carl, i had this before with my blue… and found out later when u said.. thanks

As an update I have made a second batch and it’s been in the fridge at 40F for 10 days. I flipped it after 5 when it had a good layer of white fuzz covering it and now it has a very nice coat coating of mold. This batch is much firmer at this stage than my last batch and it hasn’t shrunken down like the last batch did. The last batch didn’t expel a bunch of whey in the cave but it just got kind of soft and the tops sunk in after about 10days right before I wrapped them. I’m going to wrap them in paper today and age them at 40F for a couple more weeks before tasting one of the rounds.

Mark

Sounds good

Wrapped it tonight but the draining mat stuck to one of the disks and took a patch off the sruface about the size of quarter. Hopefully th emild will regrow to cover.

Mark